Since the days when coal was delivered in sacks, the arrangement has been simple. The householder pays for the fuel he needs and can afford. That is how things work in free societies.
But now, thanks to the Establishment’s wholesale embrace of Green dogma, this is no longer so. The authorities are seriously considering plans which will allow them to reach into our houses and reduce the flow of power to our appliances.
We will pay for these complex and faintly sinister arrangements, as we already pay for forests of grossly subsidised and unreliable wind turbines, so forcing up the price of energy once more.
These increased costs are all driven by the ever-more questionable belief that reducing carbon emissions will save the planet. Even if this is so, the rising economies of the East are paying no attention, and are blithely continuing to open coal-fired power stations, as we shut ours.
This mess could be avoided if we reintroduced rationality into our energy policy, cancelling the closure of perfectly serviceable power plants, building new gas and nuclear generators, and exploiting the shale gas which lies beneath our feet.
All that is needed is a return to sanity in the political class, which – if it understands nothing else – must see the cost and intrusion of the ‘energy-saving’ scheme will be deeply unpopular with voters.
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Big brother to switch off your fridge: Power giants to make millions - but you must pay for 'sinister' technology
MPs' fury as Miliband praises Galloway for his by-election victory over Labour
Miliband unmasked
Politicians need two faces: one smiling one to woo us, and another grimmer visage which they show in private. Most of us can cope with this sad fact. But sometimes the two are so different that it is too much to bear.
Ed Miliband’s dealings with the pariah MP George Galloway are an example of this. Mr Miliband has worked hard to try to shake off the name ‘Red Ed’, cultivating a moderate manner and avoiding controversial statements.
It was always reasonable to wonder how genuine this was. Now there can be no doubt that it is a thumping great fake. Mr Miliband claimed to have held a cool, brisk meeting with Mr Galloway, limited to practical topics. Mr Galloway’s views, he said, were ‘awful’.
Ed Miliband has worked hard to try to shake off the name 'Red Ed', cultivating a moderate manner and avoiding controversial statements
But in fact it was a friendly encounter, in which Mr Miliband flattered and congratulated Britain’s most militantly Leftist MP – for defeating Labour at a by-election.
This was having it both ways, with a vengeance. And there was vengeance. Mr Galloway responded to Mr Miliband’s disavowal by saying the Opposition leader was ‘an unprincipled coward with the backbone of an amoeba’.
Such language – typical of Mr Galloway – goes too far. Even so, disgruntled Tory voters pondering deserting the Conservative Party in local elections on Thursday might do well to consider that their defections will mainly serve to help Mr Miliband into Downing Street.
Victory for burglars
Once again, noisy promises to give us the freedom to defend our homes against burglars have been watered down.
If the law protected us better, this problem would not arise. But with 633,000 burglaries a year – 29 per cent involving violence – the police and the courts are failing the public.
It is no good complaining householders and shopkeepers are ‘taking the law into their own hands’.
Whose is the law in the first place? If the state will not enforce it, why should we not do so in our defence?
Promises to give us the freedom to defend our homes against burglars have been watered down